1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatically activated seat and shoulder belts.
2. General Background of the Invention
There are many passive restraint systems, in use and in theory, to help protect a person from harm when he is in an automobile involved in an accident. Such systems include air bags and automatically engaging safety belts. There are a number of safety belt systems for use in automobiles which, though they are automatic in the sense that the user of the auto need do nothing to become restrained, they are connected to the door of the automobile, and thus may not be effective if the door of the automobile were hit. The following U.S. Pat. Nos. disclose such systems: 3,411,602; 4,004,829; 4,084,841; 4,211,430; 4,275,903; 4,286,804; 4,372,580; 4,498,689; 4,580,812; 4,621,835; 4,655,312; 4,741,555; 4,787,651; 4,796,915; and 4,796,916. Other automatic safety belt systems are disadvantageous in that they include rigid moving parts which could possibly injure a user of the automobile. The following U.S. Pat. Nos. disclose such systems: 3,343,623; 3,613,819; 3,653,714; 3,717,216; 3,743,046; 3,781,061; 3,795,411; 3,854,749; 3,887,212; 3,897,082; 3,907,059; 3,977,701; 4,059,287; 4,082,317; 4,509,798; and 4,247,064.